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I support the moratorium of the Capital Punishment for several reasons: the Capital Punishment violates Article 3 under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person." thus it violates international law, and any country not abiding to the UDHR does not set a good example for other more troubled nations (like Syria, Somalia, D.P.R.K., and others) and promotes discourse across the international community. [Especially as the United Nations has made the moratorium(abolition) of the Capital Punishment as one of their top agendas backed by humanity groups such as Amnesty International] [*]statistics comparing the "before and after" and international crime rates of either the implementation or the abating of the Capital Punishment prove that: In actuality, there is no relation between the crime rates and the implementation or the abating of the Capital Punishment. Despite popular misconceptions, the average Capital Punishment needs a much more vigorous judicial process and complicated procedures, resulting in a higher cost than the average cost for life imprisonment. Two rights don't make a wrong, and if one were to argue that the gov't would be making an example by killing the criminal, that would be contradictory in that: by performing the Capital Punishment (i.e. killing someone), the necessary violence involved in that act does little to dissuade violence among the country's people; but rather promotes it (if not consciously then subliminally). Therefore I would much rather recommend Life Imprisonment over the Capital Punishment source: multiple years of doing Model United Nations

Now, before I start, I'm just playing the Devil's Advocate here so I mean no offense to anyone (and please no hate mail/message/whatever) I will be talking in a typical TOK-ish sense so please bear with me. First of all, that is an absolute statement and a generalization. (therefore false in terms of TOK) Also, "bad" is relative. Bad for whom? It is obviously too bad for the dead individual, but in the case of the perpetrator, who has now derived from the murder wealth, respect, revenge, satisfaction, or whatever the perpetrator had hoped to gain from the murder, this individual is clearly better off than before and so the murder is "good" for him/her. If this "bad" is in a moral sense (the typical contemporary human moral sense of the western world I am assuming, as individuals and cultures are known to have different morals), we must remember that "morals" were developed by humans so that the majority may benefit, or so that the weak do not suffer (too much) by the strong. But even so, most Political systems' primary aim is to benefit as many citizens as possible, and provide peace and stability. This also means, for the greater good, some people may need to perish. If a terrorist were to threaten the lives of a thousand people, it is obvious that that person must be "removed" from the society, one way or the other. In said circumstances, murder of the said person by the state or whomever happens to be there can be justified. Actually, in the democratic system at least, if government officials or police/security forces were unable to make the decision to kill the terrorist, they would be ridiculed and criticized. Since "morals" are the invention of the people, the judgement of the people is what counts. Therefore in this case, the terrorist is "bad", and the murder of the terrorist is "good" even if we are "willingly depriving the person of life", that itself doesn't mean it is universally "bad". In the case I've presented above concerning the terrorist, the deprivation of life is in fact "good", both in terms of the society and morals, and recommended as per the public opinion. Unless the entire public was deluded, that is; in which case this murder still wouldn't be "bad", as morality would no longer exist in the same way it had before the public became deluded. Of course, this isn't to say that murder is necessarily "good" either, as both your example and mine are merely extreme examples of the opposite kind. In consequence, I would conclude that murder, even in terms of moral sense, cannot be regarded as absolutely "good" nor as absolutely "bad"

I have very strong relationships with friends, but I do not feel obliged to talk to any of them. I merely talk to my friends because I want to, not because I have to. Also, if we were obliged to show commitment towards our friends once we were "friends", then there would inevitably come the awkward question of: "Are we friends?" or "Define friend" Otherwise we'd be unable to know exactly when to show this "commitment" It's not like I ask people: "Will you be my friend?" or "let's be friends from now on; and show continuous, regular, and everlasting commitment to each other", it just kind of "happens" like most relationships between people. One of my best friends moved away to another country some time ago but we're still the best of buddies. However, due to his being "very far away" and me being unable to see him, we don't communicate very often. Still, when we meet up we're like brothers. I haven't been able to show much "commitment" towards my very good friend, but he stays my very good friend. So I'm obviously fully in support of your views buddy.

Well, as we learn in our beloved TOK classes, it doesn't take much for one to over-generalize something As for me, I've heard things like "most Americans are fat", "they're very unaware about what's outside their country", and other much ruder stereotypes, but the many Americans I've met seem to be very nice, friendly and healthy people so I'm not sure where all these rumors started. (Although the U.S. does have a high obesity rate) My best friend's an american and he's the awesomest guy in the world. When I tease him about being american we both know i'm joking as I know half the rumors out there are unfounded. So I do get what you mean by "American prejudice" Still, I can't resist showing you this video (hope you don't get offended, it's just a stereotypical joke thing meant to be funny):

WOLFRAM MATHEMATICA I think this program may be one of the best programs out there in the market. The program can do a lot more than graphing, but is really built for it. It does cost some money to buy it but after that the processing time is very fast as much of it processes over the company's server (provided you have wifi) Here are some pictures of the very nice graphs it can draw:

sin(x)/sin(y) can be written/simplified in a number of ways: Firstly, you may reorganize the phrase as aldld did above into sin(x)csc(y), however this is merely a slightly different name for the same thing. Another form is "(e^(-i x)-e^(i x))/(e^(-i y)-e^(i y))", although this is also simply a substitution rearrangement of the same mathematical phrase. You may also assume that the x and y values are real (as in real numbers), and given that, change the form to: "-(2sin(x) sin(y)) / (cos(2y)-1)" Hope this helps P.S. The 3D graph for this formula is attached as a JPEG file so take note of that if you think visuals would help you.

All of Shakespeare's books were very enthralling, especially Twelfth Night(What you will), Hamlet, Much ado about Nothing, and the Midsummer Night's Dream. I also enjoyed the enthralling books by George Orwell: 1984 and Animal Farm. Brave New World, a dystopian piece similar to 1984, was very nice as well.

I'm planning to investigate casino games with relation to the percentage chance the casino and the participants have to win an actual profit. Not the roulette or slot machines though, that's too simple. Otherwise, I may do something with vector equations or advanced calculus but unsure yet exactly with ideas in that department. Hope this sparks some ideas

You know you're in the IB when... -- your IB textbook is your pillow. -- you skip class to do homework -- you can spell "Baccalaureate" -- all you chat with your friends about are test solutions -- you do homework instead of eating in your lunch breaks -- you understand and analyze the science behind sci-fi movies -- every time you do something, you wonder if it could be included as CAS -- you spend your free time playing with your calculator -- you think about the "validity of your statement" as you bitch about ppl (damn it)

In my opinion, the United Nations must support the Free Syrian Army because they haven't really got a choice anymore, France has already decided to consider the FSA as the official governance of Syria and severed diplomatic ties with the former government, and other states are expected to follow suit. What frustrates me is UN's typical vacillation in sending enough UN troops to end the war. Because of their indecision, more people are getting hurt and the FSA is starting to have internal doubts and friction, causing instability in their already unstable structure formed purely of rebels and civilian volunteers. The UN needs to send enough forces to overwhelm the previous gov't or the prolonged war may destroy even more cities, the way it already has destroyed Aleppo.